Favorite Childhood Electronic Toys?

[RedWolf]

What are some of your favorite electronic toys from childhood?  Assuming that you grew up in the 1970s or the 1980s, you're bound to have a few.

I liked Simon, Big Trak, and Comic Fire Away from Radio Shack.  I also had a blue "robot" named Casey with an LCD face that would change while playing a cassette tape as if it were speaking.  That was pretty boring.  Later, I listened to rap music on it and I thought it was funny watching Casey rap.

[extrarice]

I don't recall the name of this thing, but in elementary school we had this sort of tank thing that you could program with LOGO and have it drive around the room by itself.

[RedWolf]

I don't recall the name of this thing, but in elementary school we had this sort of tank thing that you could program with LOGO and have it drive around the room by itself.

I'm pretty sure that's the Milton-Bradley Big Trak.  That's exactly what it did.  It was really impressive to me as a kid.  It seemed like a real robot in that you could program it to do whatever you wanted.

[Konata]

I'm pretty sure that's the Milton-Bradley Big Trak.  That's exactly what it did.  It was really impressive to me as a kid.  It seemed like a real robot in that you could program it to do whatever you wanted.

No, I'm pretty sure Ice is talking about a turtle-bot, they were common in 80's schools, also the Big Trak was not programmable by anything other than the buttons on top.

As for me, we had this Texas Instruments thing that had overlays like a SEGA Pico but it didn't hook to the TV, it just talked in the Speak and Spell voice (in the underwater overlay it would say "JELLYFISH! OUCH!"  ).

There was of course also VTech Socrates, and VideoPainter (even though MarioPaint was better), and Tiger 2XL.

I didn't really take an interest in most of the electronic toys though. Too educational.

[RedWolf]

I'm pretty sure that's the Milton-Bradley Big Trak.  That's exactly what it did.  It was really impressive to me as a kid.  It seemed like a real robot in that you could program it to do whatever you wanted.

No, I'm pretty sure Ice is talking about a turtle-bot, they were common in 80's schools, also the Big Trak was not programmable by anything other than the buttons on top.

For some reason, I didn't stop to think that he meant "literally programmed in Logo" which pretty much assumes a PC interface, which the Big Trak didn't have.  So you're probably right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Trak

I still have my Big Trak, by the way.  It's sitting in my garage.  It was always slightly broken or missing pieces because my dad bought it at a yard sale or a flea market.

[SQLGuru]

I loved my Omnibot 2000.  Mostly because I had saved up my own money to buy it.  As a robot, it really kind of sucked.  I never got the tapes to work with my Commodore, either.

Layne

[extrarice]

Yeah that's it, the Big-Trak. I could have sworn doing LOGO with that, but maybe I'm thinking of a LOGO interpreter on the C64s we had...

[Konata]

Perhaps it was a modded BigTrak then? Doesn't sound like it'd be that hard to make.

[t3hfr3ak]

My favourite childhood toy... was this small watch LCD display that had a mario game on it. It was quite fun... although I don't remember much of it... I remember playing it while in school... oops lol

[Todd]

My Favorite was Merlin. I had hours of fun with this gadget.

[JimUlrich]

I used to have several of the Tomy Robots, but sadly not the bigger ones.  That and Mattel Football.

[Konata]

My Favorite was Merlin. I had hours of fun with this gadget.

I bought the Merlin re-release a couple of years ago. You can make some bitchin' "guitar solos" on it.

[holy calamity!]

My favourite childhood toy... was this small watch LCD display that had a mario game on it. It was quite fun... although I don't remember much of it... I remember playing it while in school... oops lol

I had one of these too! I found this site that has pictures and more info.

I also remember dropping $25 on a Donkey Kong Jr. Game & Watch handheld. Apparently someone rewrote it in Flash and it's playable here. Yeah, definitely wasn't worth the $25.

When I wasn't sitting at the TV with NES controller in-hand, the rest of my time was spent in analog-land with Lego and GI Joes. I was always jealous of you folks with money and electronic toys.

[t3hfr3ak]

My favourite childhood toy... was this small watch LCD display that had a mario game on it. It was quite fun... although I don't remember much of it... I remember playing it while in school... oops lol

I had one of these too! I found this site that has pictures and more info.

I also remember dropping $25 on a Donkey Kong Jr. Game & Watch handheld. Apparently someone rewrote it in Flash and it's playable here. Yeah, definitely wasn't worth the $25.

When I wasn't sitting at the TV with NES controller in-hand, the rest of my time was spent in analog-land with Lego and GI Joes. I was always jealous of you folks with money and electronic toys.

REALLY AWESOME!!! although... its not the exact one I had its really cool to see it

[RedWolf]

When I wasn't sitting at the TV with NES controller in-hand, the rest of my time was spent in analog-land with Lego and GI Joes. I was always jealous of you folks with money and electronic toys.

Make no mistake: I vastly preferred G.I. Joe, Lego, and playing in the woods to electronic toys.  I mostly just took the electronic toys apart to see how they worked.  That's why I have so few mechanical/electronic toys left from my childhood.